Scenario: Target 2020
= 200 Futures for 2020 = A list compiled in September 1994 by BT futurology unit. Twenty-five years ago there were no personal computers, laptop machines, liquid crystal displays, digital wrist watches or pocket calculators. Most households didn't have a telephone or a color television set and tape recorders still used open reels. Washing machines, cars and other domestic appliances contained no intelligence and there were no camcorders or VHS players. However, man had been to the moon and the space race, plus the cold war, had promoted the creation of integrated circuit technology. Since that time, our electronic based industries and society have seen a doubling in capability every one or two years across a broad range of technologies. The listing that follows therefore represents the combined wisdom and guesses of a multitude of organizations and people. We have also taken the insights and projections of our own team to temper and shape the listing of two hundred technologies we predict to be key features of our society and individual lives by the year 2020. Our purpose in compiling this list was to create a concise and, hopefully, visionary document that condenses a wide range of views from a large number of organizations. BIOTECHNOLOGY, HEALTH & MEDICAL 1. Effective management of the organic environment We will know the genomes of most plant and animal groups, so will be able to manage gene pools effectively, and also control their populations. 2. New engineered organisms used to produce chemicals Organisms will be designed for production of commodities, medicines and complex chemicals, and for waste disposal, agricultural processing and environmental management. 3. Widespread genetic intervention programs for animals and plants Many genetic enhancement techniques will be applied to wild and domestic organisms, including pets. 4. Many new forms of plants and animals from genetic engineering 5. Custom foods for particular medical conditions will exist. 6. Genetic links of all diseases identified The important biochemical mechanisms and interactions with the environment will also be known for most diseases. 7. Genetic screening widely used 8. Genetic programs to enhance human well-being Beyond curing disease, we will see the enhancement of physical and mental abilities. 9. Genetic, chemical and physiological bases of human behavior understood This will allow control of mental disorders. Brain and mind manipulation will allow control of emotions, learning, senses, memory and other psychological phenomena. 10. Full personal medical records stored on smart card Records will be highly comprehensive, with videos of operations, audio-visual interview records - complete life history on a smart card size device. 11. Individual's genome part of their medical record 12. More people will live into their 80s in good health 13. Many synthetic body parts available 14. Home (health) diagnostic systems, daily/real time check-up via radio 15. Home AI based elderly and handicapped support devices 16. Devices roaming within blood vessels under own power 17. Sensors directly connected to human sensory nerves. Also artificial nerves 18. Artificial senses, sensors directly stimulating nerves 19. Direct pleasure production 20. Prevention of cancer 21. Artificial ears, eyes, legs, lungs, hearts, pancreas, liver, kidneys, blood 22. Fine particle beam gene engineering BUSINESS 23. Global electronic currency in use 24. Paper and coins largely replaced by electronic cash 25. Paper cash used mainly for black market 26. Virtual companies dominant 27. AI models used extensively in business management 28. Purely electronic companies exist - minimal human involvement 29. Universal monitoring of business transactions DEVICES 30. Self recovering multiprocessor systems 31. Blue semiconductor lasers 32. 3D VLSI with at least 10 layers of devices 33. Optical inter-chip connection 34. Electronics with <10 nm line spacing 35. Optical ICs: optical devices & wave guides on SC substrate 36. Integrated logic devices with switching speed < 1ps 37. Digital optical binary logic using phase information 38. Three terminal super conductive devices 39. Quantum effect interferometer for flux measurement 40. High performance non linear optical 3rd order devices 41. Super lattice 2D or 3D controlled semiconductor devices 42. x-ray free electron lasers with few dozen angstroms wavelength 43. Self organizing adaptive integrated circuits 44. Continuous sheet production of LSI semiconductor substrate EDUCATION & KNOWLEDGE PURSUIT 45. Life long learning is the norm 46. Distance learning widespread - virtual universities 47. Expert systems surpass human learning and logic abilities 48. Real time language translation for print and voice 49. Broadband networked electronic libraries 50. Natural language home information retrieval and interaction 51. Very intelligent knowledge pursuit and consultation 52. Systems to understand text and drawings (eg patent information) 53. Subliminal learning 54. Machine use of human memorizing, recognizing, learning ENERGY 55. Cost of energy will be higher 56. Cities and accommodation designed to be more efficient 57. Solar cells with efficiency > 30% 58. Multilayer solar cells with efficiency > 50% 59. Large area amorphous solar cells with efficiency > 20% 60. Conversion/storage of solar energy as biochemical energy 61. Common use of solar cells for residential power supply 62. Space solar power stations 63. Water decomposition by sunlight ENVIRONMENT 64. Totally managed world environment Extensive large scale environmental engineering, including oceans, forests etc. Industry will be a part of the managed environment. 65. More effective resource management Recycling, re-engineering and resource recovery will be more effectively used 66. Extensive remote sensing use in environmental management 67. Effective intervention in natural disasters Mitigation, control or prevention of floods, earthquakes and landslides 68. World wide NIMBY problem for refugees, waste etc 69. Widespread contamination (worse than Chernobyl) by a nuclear device 70. Carbon dioxide fixation technologies for environment protection 71. Deep underground cities 72. Artificial precipitation induction 73. Global environmental management corporations INTERFACES 74. High quality A3 flat displays 75. Color video display with > 2000 x 2000 pixels 76. Large, wall hung high definition color displays 77. Wide screen (>100 in) with contrast ratio of > 10:1 78. Video walls, including living area use of VR (scenes) 79. Electronic notebook, contrast = paper even after power off 80. Video playback over network at 10 x normal speed 81. Many people sharing a virtual space 82. Positioning sound at any point in space 83. 3D TV without need for special glasses 84. Personal audio-visual interfaces well developed 85. 3D video conferencing 86. Computer link to biological sensory organs 87. Use of cheap holograms to convey 3D images 88. Full integration of processing, audio and video equipment IT LITERACY 89. Everyone in advanced nations computer literacy 90. IT literacy essential for any employment 91. Widespread VR use for recreation and training Category:Biology Category:Computer Category:Economy Category:Robotics Category:Medicine Category:Nanotechnology Category:Scenario Category:Transportation MACHINE INPUT 92. Highly integrated bio-sensors 93. Speech dialing, with recognition in switch equipment 94. Single chip multispeaker-learning voice recognition 95. Odour and flavor sensors comparable to human 96. Tactile sensors comparable to human sensation 97. No-contact identification of individuals 98. Portable translation device for simple conversation 99. Machine recognition of body language and gestures 100. Hands in screen interface 101. Bio-sensors capable of processing information MATERIALS 102. Atomic customization of materials 103. Polymers with conductivity > copper at room temperature 104. Material, refractive index variable by 0.1 in electric or magnetic field 105. Intelligent materials with sensors, storage and effectors 106. Aerogels that are heat resistant to 3500 degrees Fahrenheit 107. Metals that memorize their original shape to return to if damaged 108. Use of polymer gels for muscles, bio-reactors, information processing 109. Membranes with active transport and receptors MEMORY & STORAGE 110. 1 TB memory chip 111. Large capacity recording faster than 1Gb/s 112. Hard x-ray holography 113. Memory with access time of 1ns 114. 100GB non volatile erasable RAM in few cm square 115. Molecular memory with density of 1 TB/sq cm 116. Retrieval from 1TB database within 10 seconds 117. Optical storage media will be static, e.g. optical card 118. Single storage medium usable for all forms of data 119. Memory/storage density still a bottleneck for some applications 120. Photochemical hole burning memory at 100GB per sq cm PROCESSING 121. Very widespread embedded intelligence Everything will use processors, sensors, and smart materials sensitive to heat, light, sound and electromagnetic fields where appropriate. 122. Computers with speed exceeding 10 TFLOPS 123. 3D OEICs for image processing > 500 x 500 pixels 124. Behavior alarms based on human mistake mechanisms 125. Extensive use of analog and neural processing 126. AI technology imitating thinking processes of the brain 127. Optical neuron-computers 128. Parallel computer with 1000 million processors 129. PCs with clock rate > 100 GHz 130. Computers will write much of their own software 131. Processing speed still a bottleneck for some applications ROBOTICS 132. Robots will be commonplace, e.g. robotic teachers In home, manufacturing, agriculture, building & construction, undersea, space, mining, hospitals and streets for repair, construction, maintenance, security, entertainment, companionship, care. 133. Domestic robots will be small, specialized and attractive, e.g. cuddly 134. Robotized space vehicles and facilities 135. Totally automated factories commonplace 136. Autonomous robots with environmental awareness sensors 137. Intelligent robots for unmanned plants 138. Anthropomorphic robots used for factory jobs 139. Robots for almost any job in home or hospital 140. Housework robots for cleaning, washing etc 141. Artificial brains with ten thousand or more cells 142. Robots for guiding blind people 143. Self diagnostic self repairing robots SECURITY 144. Universal ID cards May include nationality, medical history, education, employment record, credit status, social security, affiliations, passport, life history etc. 145. Crime and terrorism will mainly be computer based 146. Viruses based on advanced AI will evolve and adapt 147. Replacement of card based ID by other methods 148. Almost all transmissions will be encrypted 149. Fire detection by odour or vibration 150. Fire fighting robots that can find and rescue people SOCIAL 151. Products of all kinds will be customized 152. Infrastructures will be self monitoring, using smart materials and sensors. 153. Factory manufactured housing will be the norm 154. English still the global language 155. Numerous world-wide virtual communities 156. World-wide popular culture, regardless of government intervention 157. Online voting 158. Electronic shopping for many products will be the norm 159. National decisions influenced by electronic referendum 160. World population > 7.5 billion 161. Average age in advanced nations will be 41 162. Migration regulated by international law 163. State pensions on a need only basis 164. More recreation and leisure time in middle classes 165. Still mass starvation in 3rd world 166. Rise of secular substitutes for religion, such as network based groups 167. Electronic newspaper to households 168. Various forms of electronic addiction will be a big problem 169. Replacement of people leads to anti-technology subculture 170. Power will be held more by corporations than by countries 171. Some cyber-nations will exist which have significant economic muscle 172. Many people will have nationality of both geonation and cybernation 173. 3rd world technology highly vulnerable to 1st world hackers SPACE 174. Orbiting space station well developed 175. Planning of manned missions to Mars 176. Start of preliminary Moon-base construction 177. Space planes in practical use 178. Planning of space factories for commercial production 179. Increasingly regular use of space-lines (eg. Virgin Galactic) SWITCHING 180. Electronic ATM switches largely obsolete & replaced by phonetic versions 181. Unified personal numbering for everything 182. All optic integrated logic, switching below 1 ps 183. Optical switches for 10,000 interactive video (3D/VR terminals) TRANSMISSION 184. Global broadband fiber based network 185. Audio transmission at 2.4kb/s, quality = analogue telephony 186. Multiple channels of >100Gbit/s/ on single fiber 187. Tb/s on optical fibers over long distance 188. Light detection sensitivity exceeding shot noise limit 189. Network will still be a significant bottleneck for some services 190. New mechanisms for communication discovered 191. Laser interferometer detection of gravitational waves TRANSPORT 192. Interactive vehicle highway systems 193. Use of fiber gyros in car navigation 194. Various traffic information systems in use These will help with navigation, traffic control, ETA, dynamic routing, monitoring, taxation and crime prevention/detection 195. Energy provided by hydrogen fuel cells and/or solar power 196. Nuclear propulsion systems for various transport types 197. Ships with super conductive electromagnetic thrust 198. Fully automatic ships able to navigate and dock automatically 199. Passenger planes with speed beyond Mach 4 and >300 capacity 200. Super conductive magnetic levitation railways at 500km/h REFERENCES # 'Future technology in Japan toward the year 2020', by the National Institute of Science and Technology Policy/Science and Technology Agency, The Institute for Future Technology (NISTEP) # 'The Highly Probable Future, 83 assumptions about the year 2025, Joseph Coates, extracting from Project 2025, Anticipating Developments in Science and Technology and Their Implications for the Corporation', sponsored by 18 large corporations, The Futurist, July/August 1994 # Fortune, September 5 1994 Category:Biology Category:Computer Category:Economy Category:Robotics Category:Medicine Category:Nanotechnology Category:Scenario Category:Transportation